ST Diversity in the Sequel Trilogy (see warning on page 11)

Well with Blue/Red sky disagreements, we could go outside and look.

Evidence can decide the issue.

I invite you to bring in any evidence from TOS episodes, or the films, to support the "Sulu is canonically heterosexual". I guarantee you won't find any.

EDITED TO ADD:

Can you truly think of no other reason I challenge these aspects of your posts? Are you interested in knowing what it is?

 

The creator of the story making the character heterosexual is not enough support for you. This feels like an argument for argument's sake.

 

Blastaar Again, find the evidence in the TOS series and films. I assure you it isn't there. I understand authorial intent, however, Roddenberry passed along the creative role to others upon his passing, who passed it to Pegg for Beyond.

Who wrote a gay Sulu.

Which was awesome.

Nope.

I straight-up asked you if you wanted to understand what I am trying to say here. I am totally cool with it if you are not interested. Please feel free to ignore me if you feel I am arguing for argument's sake.

In case you are interested, here it is, again:

I have no problem with the demand that all characters and relationships be well-written. To understand what I am saying, let me go back to Baseball/Jackie Robinson. For baseball to be integrated, a very special person had to be found. He had to be one of the best baseball players in the world, and he had to be someone who was able to take tremendous abuse without responding in kind. Jackie Robinson was both those things, a truly exceptional human being.

Again, if you are interested in understanding what I am trying to tell you, please listen closely now: the fact that Jackie Robinson had to be the best baseball player and a Saint to boot, was evidence of a racist culture. The fact that a black person had to jump through incredibly high hoops just to be accepted, is evidence of the racism he and all black people faced. White folks didn't have to be god-level ballplayers and saints. A higher standard existed for black folks than white. That was because racism.

If you want to understand why I object to you putting up an arbitrary and subjective standard, that is it. I guarantee you I would not be commenting if you were saying that romances, relationships and characters need to be well written in the "Romances" and "Relationships" threads. Because, as you note, it is obvious and inarguable that they need to be well written.

But you are doing it here, specifically in a diversity thread in reference to non-heterosexual representation. You are setting yourself up as a gatekeeper of an arbitrary and high standard for the inclusion of other folks. Do you understand the parallel?

 

I did the same thing in reference to the way finn was handled. You didn't seem to feel I was playing "gatekeeper" then. Anyways. I'm done with this. I've stated several times what I mean and what my stance is. If you wanna take it as me playing "gatekeeper" or whatever, then feel free.

EDIT: your jackie robinson reference doesn't work. He wasn't held to a higher standard as far as his play was concerned. The whole reason he was recruited into the white leagues during those times was because his standard of play was well beyond anything they saw.

 

I said then, and I'll say it again now: I really appreciate your willingness to engage in this conversation. You are smart, I agree with much of what you say, and am absolutely sure that you are person who acts in good faith.

Thanks for the conversation. Peace out.

Edited to add: The first black major league player had to be an MVP level player (even though the mvp didn't exist then). The first black player was absolutely held to a higher standard. Thats why they picked Jackie. In my view, Jackie was the greatest player of his time, until Willie Mays came along.

 

I agree with a lot of your points in this thread, but I don't agree on that being consistent. And I know Star Trek. It was beautiful, positive imagery, but in terms of the story, it made no sense at all. Pegg's defense wasn't to point back to TOS and claim that Sulu was gay all along either. There's a reason he credited the timeline break for changing everything rather than try to make that case. And to be honest, as much as it was meant as a tribute to Takei, to say nothing in his TOS performance over 50 years says the character is straight, despite Takei crafting him as such is kind of saying his work doesn't matter. I don't like the implications of that argument. Takei is gay, but if he decides to create and play a straight character, that should be respected. It's a high measure of an actor's craft to be able to play outside of themselves. Diversity shouldn't box you into roles based on your background.

Bringing that back to Star Wars, I don't make the case about that not being a good model to erect any kind of barrier to LGBT representation in the GFFA. I make it to say that you shouldn't have to make narrative choices that actually break the logic of your story to make any kind of representation happen. You can create a new character or expand on an existing character that hasn't already been defined otherwise. That's not a knock at representation, it's saying anyone being represented shouldn't have to be shoehorned in. People deserve to be accepted as they are. If Lucasfilm announced tomorrow that Poe is gay or bi and we'll have that somehow acknowledged in TLJ or Ep. IX, I'd cheer and say it's about time. He's an awesome character, that part of his background is a blank slate, and there's already a hint that could be the case with the way he was portrayed in TFA.

I'm actually hoping they go that route.

 

Agree wholeheartedly with this.

My main reason for highlighting and pursuing a conversation about this is to bring out into the open and examine it. Because I really have heard very similar things being said by people of good faith (like Blastaar) and by people who maybe had an agenda centered in trying to shut down representation. Similar words but with different agendas. So since Blastaar was being a good sport and humoring me in talking about it, I went for it.

Because if I am going to explore a conversation, I would much rather be talking to a person of good faith like Blastaar, than wasting my time trying to convince a bigot to stop being a bigot.

So to summarize what I learned in talking about this with Blastaar, and from your post, it is this: Representation is important, and because of that, it shouldn't be shoehorned into a story or done for a reason other than moving the story forward or in some way making the story better. Which means you are coming from a place of respect for the importance of representation.

To summarize what I hope I was able to communicate through this conversation: Given the vital importance of representation in the lives of young people, and the highly subjective and arbitrary standard of whether something "fits" or is "shoehorned" into a story, I hope people can put aside their judgments for a bit, and just let some more people into the celebration that is Star Wars. Even if you feel you or your friends could have written it better.

 

I think there were better players than Jackie out there (I believe Jackie himself said as much). It was important to (above simply playing at a high level) be able to absorb the hate without engaging it.

 

I think that lgbt rep in star wars, is a lot different than for say woc simply because you don't really need to put someones race into the story they can just be the character take the character of Zach from 13 reasons why for example hes asian but it doesn't need to go into depth about his heritage that doesn't effect his characters story or journey same for star wars and representation now for a example a romance any kind of romance mind you that doesn't serve the story is just distracting.

 

I would think the same applies to gender identity and sexual preference. Regardless of that identity or sexual preference, the character itself doesn't have to be in or actively seeking a relationship/romance.

 

It's probably a good idea to stop with the 1-1 analogies about race/sexuality etc - there are overlaps but there aren't neccesarily direct equivalents.
But what is common to all is that a "default" of heterosexual, white, male as the focus unless there's a good reason otherwise is no longer defensible.

Some of the defaults may well be so deeply ingrained into our assumptions that unpicking them seems jarring in theory, but if you want diversity, then damn, why not be prepared to sacrifice a line or two of dialogue to help get it.

Sure, the black guys wanting poc to be better represented are correct in the assertion that putting black characters in can just be done, without any big story points to explain it (though some have implied they want neutral characters rewritten if cast with black people, which is a different, if interesting article)
But when those same people are like "gay people in Star Wars? Only if there's a need" - well that seems to be a position that is informed by a degree of, much as I dislike the term, privilege (though I use the term here very narrowly to mean ONLY the privilege in that fixing your Star Wars representation requires on,y casting, and no story considerations/adaptations fromdefault ) - yes, it takes more work to introduce a gay character - that's why it needs to be supported by progressive people. It's so disappointing when people who are all for diversity when it's supposedly an easy fix for their personal bugbear, suddenly become all about the need for economic storytelling when it's about representing gay people.

Edit: on the Trek issue, I'm not sure it's fair to say that Roddenberry envisioned Sulu as heterosexual; it's probably fairer to say that in the context of the time, it would be highly unlikely for that, or any character, to be written as gay, because heterosexuality as default, and at the time being considered morally, spiritually etc "better".

Sometimes, as times change, the best way of representing or evaluating people's intent is to look at the context and how it relates to the norm at the time - by those standards, it's absolutely fair to see Trek as progressive, and as a custodian of Trek to see it as more appropriate to reframe the progressiveness for a different time, than to assume that the standards of the time were an absolute reflection of how that universe should be portrayed

 

I dunno man, there may have been better guys in the negro leagues, but when Jackie was at his best, he was the best ballplayer, hands down, in the MLB. His peak was shorter than a lot of guys, but his peak was HIGH. I was wrong about the mvp award, he won it in 1949. He should have won it again in 1951. IMO. Dude was legit af.

 

Chiaroscuro Side is right though, in that we do just take absolutely for granted that there will be hetero relationships in films, and some may work well, and some may result in the "meh, no chemistry" response, while even highly speculative discussion about gay relationships creates a whole thing of "it must be REALLY well written, and must be INCREDIBLY integrated to the forward momentum of the plot"

 

This is true. I don't think anyone ever said, "after AOTC's awkward portrayal of Anakin and Padme's romance, I don't ever want to see another heterosexual relationship in a movie."

 

That's just it though. A gay character doesn't need a full blown romance to be established as gay. Something as simple as a little flirtation is all it would take. Or even just a line of dialog: "No wonder you're so popular with the boys." No one needs to go to the Lake Country and talk about sand, or get stuck traveling through space with a broken hyperdrive.

 

This is why I find it funny that people talk about how Takei "chose" to play Sulu as straight. Takei himself wasn't able to come out publicly until 2005. He wasn't able to portray EVEN HIMSELF IRL as gay until almost 40 years after he began playing Sulu.

Let that sink in for a minute. He felt he couldn't even risk portraying himself as authentically gay during the TOS time period. How could he have possibly have played a gay Sulu? It wasn't an option for him.

A gay Sulu wasn't even an option for Roddenberry and Takei to choose. Props to Roddenberry for doing everything in his power for representation for as many people as he could. Dude was a badass when it came to inclusivity. Too bad he passed away before it became possible. And props to Pegg and Cho for making it happen once the possibility arose.

 

Only thing I maintain is that we get legit, fleshed out characters. Voltron is probably my favorite thing right now in terms of female representation.

 

But that's the whole issue, blastaar - you should be able to talk about gay characters as if the writing of them is neutral; not as if writers need a heads up to not do it badly.

Or, to put it another way - it's just as OK to write a rubbish gay character as a rubbish heterosexual character.

Or, to labour it even more' EVERY character in every flim should be written well enough to be an asset to the film, and not a downside. So to pre-empt the writing of gay characters by emphasising that importance creates the distinct impression that higher standards are required of gay characters

 

It would be one thing if Takei wrote a memoire and said "I would have preferred to play Sulu as gay, but wasn't allowed that option." He stated it was a deliberate decision for him and didn't like the idea of changing it. Those are his own words. No one at Paramount asked him to come out against that choice? Why does it feel like that's not acceptable?

 

The views of the individual actor aren't crucial to the point (though personally I found Takei's response to this to be rather odd) - it's important to remember that sometimes oppression is so much the default that even oppressed people think of it as normal.
(though I want to stress - I don't mean this as a "Takei doesn't even realise he is being abused - what I mean is that he *is* from a different time, and the way he was expected to conform isn't the case now)

Again, not a 1-1 analogy, but in England when every so often there's an irritating news story about some seaside shop selling golliwogs, in the comments there is always someone saying "I saw a Jamaican woman buy one, I guess she's racist against herself?" - people who aren't from the group discussed always seem far more likely to give credence to a member of the oppressed group advocating the status quo, than someone advocating change.

And yeah, I don't see how the point about Takei not even being out (understandably) can be separated from the way he played Sulu

 

I think this misses his point. He's made the case several times now that he's not arguing for a bar to be met to justify representation from anyone. He's saying that as with any role, you shouldn't have to break your story to make a character work.

His argument, as I read it, is if you're going to do it, do it well. If not, he's prepared to be critical of the story choice.

There have been one dimensional diverse characters in spades. Blastsaar seems to be asking for better.

 

griffon2k, citation please. I can find no instance where Takei says he was given an option to play Sulu as a gay character. He does say that he played Sulu straight, but in order to have a choice, an alternative must be possible. I can find no reference to Takei ever saying that he was given a choice to play Sulu as a gay character.

And no, a quote saying he played Sulu as straight doesn't count. Again, in order for that to be a real choice made on his part, he would have had to have the option to play Sulu as a gay character.

 

No, I haven't missed the point. My point specifically is that anyone looking forward to any film should reasonably be assumed to be expecting an appropriate level of writing, characterisation, story etc, so discussion about the potential for including gay characters should not be focused on how well it's done, because if you think of gay people as just being people, there's no need to worry about that more than any other aspect of a film.

So it's not that I miss the point, it's more that my point is in direct conflict to a point that suggests that a standard of writing is required before a gay character can be introduced.

Or, in a nutshell - Blastaar is only asking for better in the case of portraying gay people. I don't see him on other threads arguing against hypothesised relationships "unless well written"

 

It's important to listen to the voices of the people of the communities we want to see represented if we're going to have true diversity, particularly when that voice is an actor who has lived through the status quo. I trust George to know how difficult it was to get LGBT characters on screen, he lived that up close. And I certainly trust him to know when he's being forced to play a certain way and when he's bothered that a character he helped to create is changed from what he intended.



It's troubling to see any ally of diversity minimize or discard voices of people in the fight.


Put your feelings aside about what role George was allowed to play, and ask what he wanted to play. And when he tells you, listen.

 

Nah. Its never OK to right a rubbish character. Thats my only gripe with the push for diversity. Too many people are fine with a garbage character, as long as its a mark for diversity. Thats sloppy seconds. It also breeds the kind of bandwagon culture that lambasts anyone who dares to criticize the writing of such a character. Max landis basically said "i can't believe people have no criticism over the way they handled rey! Earlier this year we got Furiousa, yet people think rey is this bastion of great writing?!". Naturally he was torched and received death threats as "mary sue", a term that was never gender specific is now reclassified as a misogynistic slur. If we don't hold characters to a certain standard just because they're black/poc, female, gay, etc. Then it defeats the whole purpose of the inclusion. The approach to writing a gay character should be the same as when writing a hetero character. "ok what gender are we doing? now this is long form story telling so I'm actually thinking about a possible love life here. Is our character hetero or gay? Is our character single, "getting around", or in a relationship? Whats their personality? What is their motivation as it fits into the story? What skills do they offer? what failings to they offer?,etc." Thats basically what you do when dreaming up a new character for an xman team, but you should do that for any and every main character for any and every kind of story. If you're writing a star wars movie and you intend for these characters to be around, then there should be tons of brainstorming on what you want to convey. If your motivation is just "lets make a character.....black/gay/female/disabled/etc. Done! where are my praises for being progressive" then I'd sooner tell you to eff off than pat you on the back. That approach is more about self gratification than diversity. I find it insulting when I detect such things.

George Takei obviously interacted with Roddenbury a lot over the years. He also speaks about how meticulous Roddenbury was when creating these characters. This is even reflected in the character's name. He confirms that roddenbury intended for sulu to be a heterosexual. That is a fact. There is no reason to try and twist it into "well he couldn't play him gay because..". People knew Takei was gay. In fact, I believe that was a part of the friction between he and Shatner. (aside from shatner being ridiculously narcissistic.) Pegg and company were caught off guard by takei's reaction to gay sulu, which sadly indicates that they were more concerned with people adoring their decision, than actually adding diversity AND quality to the lore. Is it good they FINALLY have a main character thats gay in Star trek? sure. Was it done in a sloppy manner? IMO absolutely. Anyways, whats done is done. Sulu is gay, unless another wacked out romulan rips back through time. Then who knows, Sulu may suddenly become asexual.